He quipped: “When I started you would be having a fry on the morning of the match but you don’t see a sausage from one end of the year to the next.

“We used to train four or five times a week in the early 2000s but now it’s maybe three nights a week with plenty of recovery.

“It is the off-field training and effort that makes the difference.

“Between stretching and core and all these mad fads that come out now.”

Shefflin’s diet is not the only thing that is different, as he now has four children with wife Deirdre.

He said he also cannot celebrate for as long as before, saying: “It lasts a couple of days for me, then the wives and girlfriends pull a couple of us back into line but I’m sure the younger lads will live on it for a while.”

Shefflin added he never becomes indifferent about winning, saying: “It gets better and better, I don’t know if you saw the pictures but we were in Nowlan Park and it was just amazing.

“The lads are tired after a night celebrating but you just get such a lift when you see the support we have.”